She sat on a chair; Potter knelt beside her. She smiled down at his head; her fingers reached out to touch his hair.
He was looking up into her face now with eyes that glowed, glowed with the pride of success, with the happiness that comes only from the consciousness of a great service performed worthily.
"How proud you should be!" she said, gently. "How proud the country will be of you!... To love one's country--and to be able to do a great thing for one's country...."
The spirit of the high places was still upon them; they could not think small thoughts, speak puny words. For a time they sat in silence. Then Potter spoke:
"I knew--up there--that you should never leave me," he said.
She acquiesced; it was a thing that had come to her as well.
"We were created for each other.... Nothing could hold us apart."
"I believe there is something--something that selects a man and woman and brings them together.... We have been brought together."
Again silence fell. Her hand rested on his head--it was the only contact of their bodies.
"Hildegarde," he said, presently, "there is a thing I must mention this once--and then never again. It must never arise between us, in your heart or in my heart."
"You confessed to me once--here in this room--" He hesitated, sought for words in which to clothe the thing, words that would carry no bitterness, no accusation, none of the horror the fact had brought to him. "You said you loved me, but could marry no man."
He groped for her meaning; it was hidden from him.
"It was _his_ blood in my veins--the blood of a man who could betray his country.... It defiled me. He was my father, and the fact defiled me. He was loathsome to me, but my life came from him.... How could I marry any man? Could I hand on such an inheritance to the innocent?"
His heart seemed to stop. Did he hear aright? Was this the defilement and the manner of her defilement? He could have cried aloud with joy, for she was as he had thought her. Looking into her face, into her eyes, he had been unable to believe--but the fact of her confession had daunted him.... And _this_ was her confession....
A doubt came. The matter must be placed beyond all doubtings. He believed he understood, but now he must know.